


Phanservice

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2017, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: The twenty-minute walk outside in the April chill is going to suck. And that’s not even factoring in the expected chill of seeing his mum.A fic about wanting to be seen and a comforting cloak of irony.





	Phanservice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Phandom Fic Fest](http://phandomficfests.tumblr.com/)'s Hits Different fest, and betaed by the unparalleled [ahappydnp](http://ahappydnp.tumblr.com/)!

It’s not a bad day, by any means. Just one of those days where Dan sits in his own head a little longer than he should. He’s tired already. Which means he’s quiet, and that keeps him in his own head even more. The move coming up, nuggets of ideas that might become a tour, his brain not cooperating as per usual— it’s an extra effort to pay attention to what’s going on outside of himself. 

He’s almost through with lunch he and Phil had with Lauren, and he’s soon to be faced with having to go meet his mum afterwards to grab a coffee and collect the jacket he left in Wokingham over Christmas. And doing two things? Three including the liveshow he’s gotta do tonight? On a day that isn’t bad but is already tiring, it’s a lot. 

He wants to be back home already with everything done and behind him. He wants to be in his sofa crease with his legs draped across Phil’s lap. He wants a hot drink in his hands and to be able to close his eyes and shut everything else out for a little while. 

But he can’t do that. Not for a few hours yet. 

Someone opens the door to the café where they’re eating and Dan regrets for the eightieth time that they got a table near the door. It’s been warm in London lately. He made the fashion risk of wearing his bamboo/weed jumper out despite how dreadfully thin the material is, and with every gust of wind that comes through the door when it opens he feels cold like ice run through all the teensy gaps in the fabric. 

Phil notices his shiver, grins and says, “Told you you’d freeze, Danny.” 

“Shut up,” Dan throws back, taking the last bite of his panini and feeling the warmth of it travel down to his stomach. The twenty-minute walk outside in the April chill is going to suck. And that’s not even factoring in the expected chill of seeing his mum. 

Not that things are as strained as they used to be. He’s making an effort. They’re both making an effort. It’ll be nice to see her, nice to chat. Nice to get his jacket back. 

But there will be a chill— a chill they will try to smother with feigned familiarity, to middling success. 

He can already hear her opening joke, the one she’ll give when he walks up to her alone. “No Phil today?” she’ll say, “Thought you two were joined at the hip.” 

Which is a fine if unoriginal joke, the one everyone in the world makes whenever one of them is somewhere without the other. But it will sting to hear his mum say it. His mum who doesn’t understand just how often they _do_ join at the hips. His mum who, on some level… after all these years… she must at least suspect. But he’s not gonna say it outright. He’s not. He can’t. He’s nowhere near ready to say something like that to the woman who birthed him. 

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish sometimes that she’d make the leap herself. That, despite his fears and his efforts to the contrary, his queerness would be clear. Or at least, him and Phil as a unit would be clear. Something more than a unit, because that’s already clear enough. He’s not sure… he wants everyone to know, without him having to say so, that he and Phil are soulmates. 

It occurs to him, after they’ve emptied the table and stood to leave, there might be something he can do to make that clear. Something small, something microscopic, but which he would know about. 

“Lemme borrow your coat, Phil,” he says when they’ve waved goodbye to Lauren. “You’re headed straight home and I’m gonna freeze my tits off!” 

Phil hands it over without argument, just a smile that says yet again I-told-you-so. And to his credit, he did. 

Dan gets the same little thrill he always does at borrowing something of Phil’s, even if he should be immune to it by now. They’ve shared plenty of clothing over the years. Still, it’s warmer and smells of Phil and his muddled mood is minutely improved just for having slipped into his boyfriend’s coat. 

*

The twenty-minute walk might be nice on a normal day. And on a bad day, it would be part of his self-destructive M.O. He has to watch when he can let himself be alone with his thoughts. It basically boils down to when he has the energy to counter the worst of them. Today is fine, but the walk means that by the time he actually spots his mum half a block away he’s expecting her to comment on Phil’s jacket. 

Which she doesn’t do, of course. 

Because she has no way of knowing it’s Phil’s jacket. It’s not like his name is bedazzled along the back. 

He spends half the visit being annoyed with her about it, before realizing he’s being unfair. She seems to chalk it up to him being moody. What worked for 16 probably works for 26, right? Whatever the spiritual equivalent of rolling his eyes is, Dan’s doing it. Then he realizes he’s being unfair again. 

The rest of the visit is fine. By the end he has his own coat, a smattering of hometown gossip, and a brief update on Adrian which surely has the same amount of depth as the updates he receives about Dan. 

His mum hugs him goodbye. She smells like home, the laundry soap she’s used all his life and memories he has of being very small. They halfheartedly commit to grabbing lunch together in a month or two. They'll text about it. 

Dan walks away feeling unseen, something that usually comes with the feeling of relief but today for some reason or another is chafing him. He checks his phone when he gets home and sees he has to do his liveshow in a few hours. 

*

The unseen feeling festers in the meantime. Phil asks him how it went when he plops down on the sofa and lays his head on Phil’s lap. He feels Phil’s long fingers thread through his curls. He gives Phil a tired huff and that seems to be answer enough. Phil never outright huffs after seeing his mum. 

But then, Phil’s mum knows that he’s going home to his boyfriend. 

By the time he’s setting up his phone for the livestream the need to be a bit reckless is spilling from him. The want for everyone to _know_ without him _saying_ is choking him. 

It eventually pours out during the liveshow, where he brags about wearing his boyfriend’s coat— without saying the word “boyfriend” and by dressing up the anecdote in twenty layers of irony. It’s his go-to, his first instinct when sincerity gets a little scary. To snort or fake gag, even if all that does is immediately point out the layers. Still, even if he’s going on about the anecdote being nothing but phanservice, it scratches that itch. 

It does the trick.

It’s enough, for now. 

Maybe one day the rest of his crumpled up insides will allow for something different. Maybe being seen won’t be so terrifying and he can indulge in his craving for it.

But yeah, he thinks when he says his final goodbye and closes the YouNow app, for now enough people have a good idea of just what him wearing Phil’s jacket around the city for part of the day means.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/187242858844/phanservice) !

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Phanservice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23470465) by [yikesola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola)


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